Men's Basketball to Take Part in 2014 Paradise Jam

BATON ROUGE – The LSU Athletics Department has confirmed a newspaper report that the men’s basketball team will take part in the 2014 Paradise Jam.

The event, which began in 2000, is held on the Island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since 2001, the tournament has been played at the 4,000-seat University of the Virgin Islands Sports and Fitness Center. The facility has been praised as one of the best non-mainland tournament facility by several coaches who have played in the event in the past.

On Wednesday, the Virgin Islands Daily News announced the 2014 field that includes LSU, Clemson, Seton Hall, Gardner Webb, Illinois State, Nevada, Old Dominion and Weber State. The field will be formally announced next week, but the teams were confirmed to the paper by promoter Basketball Travelers Inc. The event will take place the week before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21-24. The bracket will be determined after the current college basketball season, according to a tournament spokesman.

“We are looking forward to taking part in the 2014 Paradise Jam,” said LSU Coach Johnny Jones. “We look forward to having the opportunity to take our players to the U.S. Virgin Islands for some outstanding competition this November.”

While LSU has played exhibition games in Mexico, Canada and made a couple of overseas trips to Italy, this will be the first actual counting competition outside the 50 states. The tournament, like many of the tournaments at that time of the year, will have three days conduced over four days. This past year the CBS Sports Network provided either on-air or online coverage of the games.